Christmas crazies

22122007

I love Christmas – and I hate it. This year has been manic, with full-on work butting up to Silly Season celebrations and sending me crazy. But I’m ‘officially’ on holidays now and, for once, everyone has scattered and I have the house to myself.

If you’ve lived with a houseful of teenagers and their passing parade of friends, you’ll know what I mean. It’s all relative, of course. One or two little balls of energy falling asleep at the same time have a similar effect. Silence. Delicious silence and all-mine space…

So I’ve opened my latest draft of The Novel, and for the first time in too long I’m about to start writing again (as soon as I stop being distracted…). I confess, I’ve chucked the almost-finished first novel in the too-hard basket temporarily. I’ve got too many blanks to fill in and it’s so long since I’ve written I’ve completely lost the plot!

I’ve started writing a first-person novel and it’s much more fun. Perhaps that’s why so many first-time novelists do it – it’s so much easier to find your ‘voice’. Of course, first-person is probably overused in novels these days, but it’s pretty useful as writing practice – and anything that gets me to the desk (apart from work!) is a good thing.

Well, I can’t hang around chatting all day – this silence is bound to disintegrate in spectacular fashion very soon. To all of you out there in cyberspace, fellow writers, mad mums and friends… have a cool yule.